À propos de Neutral Milk Hotel

For all their experimental detours and garnish, Neutral Milk Hotel's songs display, at their core, great songwriting in the traditional sense, like the late-career Beatles and Beach Boys. Emotionally evocative melodies and lovely vocals move through songs with memorable grace. When listening to these songs, however, you'd be hard-pressed to find a Western instrument not represented in their elaborate, Lo-Fi orchestrations. A muffled trap kit, a singing saw, a desperate voice, an accordion, a squawking flugelhorn, and various electronics help compile an endless list of noise makers that play in the margins between a chaotic, "everybody come to our house and jam" sound and meticulous song construction. These disparate sounds are then brought together as if resounding off a basement's wood-panelled walls and soiled shag carpet, or echoing out of a converted-barn studio. Neutral Milk Hotel's sound is far from gleaming Los Angeleno production, but to polish away their oxidized patina would be to erase their immediacy and simple rustic beauty. Marc Kate